


Guarded

by Captain_Panda



Series: Cap'n Panda's Whumptober 2020-21 [7]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Sleep Deprivation, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:56:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26923237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Panda/pseuds/Captain_Panda
Summary: Given Steve's and Tony's respective quirks, sharing a bed brings new challenges to the relationship, especially when it's anewbed.Or: Tony can't stop checking locked doors, and Steve really just wants some shut-eye.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Cap'n Panda's Whumptober 2020-21 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953019
Comments: 10
Kudos: 114





	Guarded

**Author's Note:**

> *yawn*
> 
> *handwave*
> 
> ...*fingerguns*
> 
> :)
> 
> -Cap'n Panda

“I’m gonna check the doors.”

“Tony,” Steve murmured. “They’re locked.”

Shaking his head, Tony insisted, “Just gonna check, I’ll—don’t wait up.”

Steve did one better—he followed in Tony’s footsteps, until Tony said, “Gee, whiz, can’t a guy get a little _space_ around here?” Purposefully lingering back a ways, Steve heard Tony say, “No, see, now I feel like you’re hunting me.” He settled on side-by-side, grumbling, “I just wanna check the doors, it’s not a covert operation.”

It kind of was—Tony tried to avoid calling attention to the fact that he triple-checked the doors every night, and this was the _fourth_ time he’d done the rounds. For someone with a chronic heart condition, it was more work than he needed to be doing, especially late at night, when he should be _resting_.

“See, my God, total security breach,” Tony stressed, yanking on a firmly locked door. “There’s no peephole. How will we know who’s here?”

“Perhaps the outdoor camera, sir?” offered J.A.R.V.I.S. “For the record, there have been no visitors through this particular door in twelve hours.”

“Twelve—okay,” Tony muttered, already striding briskly in the direction of the next door. “Well, that’s—fine, I guess. Next time, I want a bunker with _one_ door,” Tony said, giving a firm tug on door number two even though a panel beside it showed a red light for _locked_. “You can never be too sure,” Tony said, catching him in the act of observation. “These things fail all the time,” he added, bashing a fist against the panel once.

J.A.R.V.I.S. again chimed in politely, “They have yet to fail, sir, although it does remain a possibility.”

“See? _Remains a possibility_.”

“ _Tony_ ,” Steve sighed, catching him before he could check the third door. “Let’s go to bed. J.A.R.V.I.S. can check the rest. Right, J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“Of course, sir. I can confirm that all twelve doors are currently engaged in lockdown mode.”

“See?”

“Well, he’s a habitual liar,” Tony muttered, shaking off his loose hold and marching off. “Can’t trust him, you never _know_ what he could be up to.”

Allowing Tony to gain a slight lead, Steve told him quietly, “You know you can trust us, right?” It was easier than “trust _me_ ,” less personal if the answer was negative.

Tony surprised him. “It’s not about trust,” Tony snapped. “It’s—it’s—it’s my choice. My _home_.” He again yanked on the door, then said, “Did we check the second one? I thought I saw—” and retreated.

It was 2:31 AM. Normally, Steve would be deep in his two-hour sleep-cycle by now, but he—well, he didn’t _mind_ sleeping alone, but he kind of liked the opportunity to be with his best guy. 

It was a feeling of companionship that brought back both good and bad memories—the war had been both the safest and _unsafest_ time of his own life, and sometimes, lying down with another guy made him feel like a gun was about to go off any second. Sharing a bed was a special obstacle to overcome. On the one hand—very safe. He trusted his guys—his _guy_ —to have his back completely. On the other—gun.

And, in fact, that was often how it went, given Tony’s apparently compulsive _need_ to check the doors, to make sure the lab wasn’t unfair, or just to leap out of bed at the tiniest provocation, sending Steve into a sympathetic—or, rather, _parasympathetic_ —response mode. Normally, Steve tried to go back to sleep on his own, ignoring his racing heart and its implicit message: _Maybe you should check on somethin’, too_.

He trusted his guys, he trusted J.A.R.V.I.S.—bless his robotic heart and endless indulgences of random inquiries at all hours—and he trusted the compound’s integrity. As far as he was concerned, falling asleep under a roof, four walls, and a locked door was the good life.

Would’ve been.

Was. _Was_. Didn’t matter that Tony didn’t trust his own tech or security systems—that was a Tony thing, not a Steve thing. Really, it wasn’t his business to stick his nose in it. Tony was right—he should make himself scarce.

But he’d seen too many boys with wide eyes and a compulsive need to check their gun when it was lights out, and he was worried about Tony. Tony was _his_ guy. Not just another private, somebody’s kid, struggling with the weight of the war on his shoulders. He had a sworn duty to protect the innocent, and that certainly included the likes of Tony Stark.

He just couldn’t put his _thumb_ on it. “Tony, it’s _your_ tech,” he finally reminded, hoping an appeal to reason might help the process along. Tony’s trust issues went so much deeper than locked doors, but at least that much was simple and true. “You know that, right? It won’t turn on you.”

Tony shivered, said, “I know,” and then, “I _know_ that,” irritated.

He’d give a lot to know exactly what to say, to banish the apparent anxieties making it impossible for Tony to get some shut-eye. _Reveille’s in three hours, Tony. You gotta get some sleep_.

Reveille wasn’t a thing anymore, but Tony Stark slept one night in three, less if he felt like Steve wasn’t watching, and that just wasn’t gonna fly. He had to . . . well, not _get over it_ , Steve himself had told higher-ranking officers to back off their men if they got too pushy about it, understanding it from the little guy’s perspective, even if he _didn’t_ understand the little guy’s perspective, exactly, only his predicament. He needed to—cope. Deal with it. Yeah. That was it.

“Come back to bed,” he said, switching tacks. “It’s late. You’re tired.” Sometimes, a little sympathy went a long way.

Tony growled under his breath, “I didn’t ask you to be my _mother_ ,” which, admittedly, hurt a little. Steve _was_ the proud owner of a _World’s Best Mom_ mug (gag gift from Clint, although he still had no idea what a _gag gift_ was), but it was all in good fun. He was their CO—they could call him whatever they wanted as long as they shaped up and stopped messing with the fire alarms for legitimate but exasperating reasons. But Tony was truly his co-leader—it was wrong for him to dismiss him as overbearing.

“Okay,” he said, quietly conceding. “You know where to find me,” he reminded.

Tony ignored him, already moving to check the next door down the hall. Steve said, “I love you,” but Tony ignored that, too.

To smooth down his own feathers, he checked on Bruce, who was the only routine night owl of the bunch. He blinked wide-eyed at Steve, frozen like a deer in headlights, but Steve just said, “Night, Bruce,” and Bruce nodded once in acknowledgement, reading glasses slipping down his nose, bright white in the laptop reflection.

Clint was a habitually early riser and Natasha kept odd hours and rarely on property anywhere—the testosterone level _was_ fairly high, Steve could acknowledge, nailing the first laundry-foregoer to the wall for crimes against humanity—but Thor was doing laps in the pool, lit up in the darkness.

“It’s quaint,” Thor acknowledged. “Nothing like Asgard, of course, but—quaint.”

Steve nodded once. “Night, Thor.”

Sometimes, Steve mused, stepping up to the sliding door for his and Tony’s room, he missed life in the Tower. While the ocean was splendid, it was not particularly friendly at night, and even the brief shiver of waves crashing on shore was strangely ominous. There was a rhythm to the ocean that _only_ the ocean could mimic, and it was no longer friendly to him.

It was one of those compromises he felt genuinely bad about as he shut the bedroom window. It was one of those compromises he _couldn’t_ compromise on—the sound of the ocean paired with darkness set his teeth on edge. In the daytime, it was fine, but at night, an animal sense-memory arose, and he couldn’t—stand it. He just couldn’t, and he’d been as honest as he could about it, Tony waving off his _of course, of course, planes, water, right_ , and asking for no further proof.

But Tony left the damn window open so _much_ , and it made Steve think that he needed it, because if there were ever two opposites, it was the hush of the ocean and the silence of the desert.

Steve preferred the quiet; Tony preferred the noise. It was a problem, but Tony refused to acknowledge it as a problem, refused to participate in any way, shape, or form in the conversation. He just shut the window like he didn’t open it every night.

A guy obsessed with locked doors needed an open window to sleep. That was the strangeness of their lives.

Decided, Steve shoved the window back open, ignoring the way the hairs on his neck prickled, the immediate sense of unease that flooded him. _This is fine_ , he told himself, crawling back under the covers from whence he had come, helpfully pulling them up over his head, muffling the noise a little. _This is fine._

If Tony needed it to sleep at night, he could try. It wasn’t like he wasn’t accommodating, wasn’t like—

But he couldn’t sleep at all, twitching as he imagined the water trickling into the room, filling the floor. He kept getting up to check, disappointed at himself every time, ruining any attempts at sleep. It was so _noisy_. He just needed a little peace and quiet, that was all. Even in the _Army_ , he’d found that, the ambient noises of the encampment familiar to him, like New York at night. He could sleep through it.

He could not sleep through this.

He heard the door slide open mechanically, footsteps padding into the room. He ignored them, feigning sleep. Then he heard the window thump shut firmly. Anger boiled up inside him and he sighed, “Dammit, Tony, you can leave it—”

Tony tensed—breath hitching once, an abortive gasp, before he gathered himself and snapped back, “Don’t _do_ that.”

Shoving back the covers, ruse up, Steve insisted, “Just leave it open, Tony—”

“No,” Tony said firmly, jaw so tense Steve was surprised he didn’t hear it creak. “Uh-uh. End of discussion.”

Sitting up, Steve ran a hand through his hair and sighed, “I don’t want you to hurt yourself just because—”

Tony moodily clambered under the covers, flicked off the light on his side of the bed. The room was instantly dark and quiet, and Steve’s anger died away, leaving behind a deep sense of shame. The blue light from the reactor was quietly loud, obvious but not overwhelming, a reminder that it was _Tony Stark_ beside him, his Tony.

“I’m sorry,” he said, needing to say it. “I don’t know what—”

“S’fine. Go to sleep.” Tony didn’t even twitch to look at him. Steve flicked on his own bedside lamp, and Tony flinched a little. “Steve, I—”

“What if I slept in the guest room?” Steve offered, certain it was a charitable compromise—Tony could have what he wanted, the noise and lights, and Steve could have what he needed, the darkness and quiet. _Tony needs it, too._ “That way—”

Tony was already rolling over and latching onto his waist with both arms. “No,” he insisted.

“It’s not a big deal, Tony,” Steve said seriously. “Even—just—” He was so damn tired. He had a _schedule_ , and when one only slept two hours a night, those two hours were precious. Especially since he _could_ expect his own version of a reveille at five AM—if he didn’t make an appearance by six, somebody else would, wondering if he’d up and died in the middle of the night.

“I just wanna go to bed,” he said, which sounded awfully petulant and a little sad, because he was literally _in bed_ , and the window was shut, and Tony had turned off the lights, and why was _he_ the one dragging his feet?

_Because Tony won’t self-advocate?_

A little laugh bubbled out of him, and he saw Tony arch his eyebrows, perhaps wondering if Steve had lost it. Maybe he had. Maybe he had—he did snap unreasonably hard over disorderly spaces, did get on Tony’s case about—everything. _Eat, Tony. Sleep, Tony. Be careful, Tony_. “I’m sorry,” he said again, flicking off the light.

Tony blinked up at him, still plainly visible in the reflective light from the reactor. Steve drew in a deep breath, said seriously, “It’s bedtime,” and almost shooed Tony off, aware that Tony might wanna get up and check the doors again, and he really— _really_ —just wanted to sleep through his brief night. 

He was so damn tired, and he knew better than to pick fights when he was tired, but the serum’s version of tired was strange. It was, very much, like a light switch—one moment he was spiritedly and candidly arguing, and the next, he was struggling not to simply lie on the floor and recharge. If he _didn’t_ stick to his routine, he had about three days to get his act together before all hell broke loose and the serum started demanding more.

It had only been seven days of Tony getting up _just_ when he fell asleep, but it was messing with his sleep, and—

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, because he couldn’t say it _enough_ , and he was tired, so it made more sense to apologize than argue. “I know you—you need it.”

Tony just blinked once at him, infuriatingly quiet. “But dammit, Tony, _ask_ for it,” he grunted. “Just _ask_. I’m—I can compromise,” he promised.

“Can you?” Tony finally volleyed, which really got under his skin, it did, and he was prepared to sit up, grab the light, and duke it out with words, when Tony aborted: “You know what? I’m sorry, too. There. I said it. Now we can—” He twitched, suddenly, asked, “You see that?” and squirmed out of bed, plastering himself against the window.

It got Steve’s own heart racing, it did, and he rolled over with a deep-seated groan, flicked on the lights, and whatever demon had materialized in the corner of Tony’s vision vanished promptly. Tony actually blushed as he said, “Nope, just a—dolphin. Maybe.” Clearing his throat, he shucked the curtains closed firmly. “Or a shark.” Laughing lamely at his own joke, he crawled back into bed. “Shark. Probably. There’s great whites out there, you know.”

Well, Steve thought, officially entering _too tired to be angry_ territory, that might change his attitude about swimming in the ocean during the daytime, but—“Tony,” he pleaded, eyes shut, expression truly forlorn if it matched his voice at all. “Tony. I just—I need you to.” Then, realizing what he was doing, he got up, because it really _was_ past the point of words, anyway. He’d just sleep in the guest bedroom. That was fine.

“Where’re you going?” Tony asked, sounding borderline nonchalant with a hint of alarm underneath it. “Hey. Steve?”

Steve didn’t answer, deciding maybe he’d communicate better _without_ words, and tried not to experience genuine disappointment as he returned to his old guest room. It was still prim and proper—more so than when it was inhabited; there was even the slightly sterilized scent of ozone more typical of the lower floors of the compound—but he sighed anyway in relief as he hugged the bed, not bothering to get under the covers.

Two days ago, he thought, conscious but not for long. Next time, he’d intervene two days ago, and not when he was already so far past red he couldn’t even read his own scale of tired anymore.

He slept magnificently for thirty minutes, gloriously, some would say, and then disaster struck—the door opened and he bolted upright, heart pounding, barely awake but sensing danger-intruder-alert-run-shoot- _go_ , before Tony said meekly, “I, um.”

Steve was a patient man in the mornings and afternoon and even early evenings, but god _damn_ if he was not a true night owl. Night _was_ bedtime—it was when the sun went down and everything slowed so he could finally rest. He did his patrol and then he did his reports and he went to bed.

He did his reports. Did he do his reports? He had a headache thinking about it, a massive, unforgiving one, and he promptly reburied himself in the mattress, leaving Tony alone with his existential crisis. He could deal with it in _two hours_ —except, hellfire, that was _too much_ on top of the half hour he’d already had, his whole day was ruined, now, and he’d have to try again _tomorrow_ night, and he was so _tired_.

“Tony. Please,” he said, simple, without inflection.

Tony said, “I am so much stronger than you,” and it might have annoyed Steve to the point of an argument, the way he _did_ sound so—perfectly capable of handling however much ( _little_ ) sleep he’d gotten. “I am just— _made_ of brute force.” Then he flopped down on Steve’s back, making him grunt, and wheezed, “Ow.” He rolled off him, cuddling up to Steve’s side instead, the metal of the reactor pressing against him.

Steve slowly held up that arm, and Tony burrowed under it gratefully, nearly hiding under him, desperate to be—safe, protected, whatever he needed, whatever he _needed_ Steve would give. Beyond words, he just held onto Tony, eyes shut, breathing tame, trying to infuse as much safety as he possibly could into the simple gesture.

Tony relaxed very slowly against him, tense inch by tense inch, shivering a little with it and trying to hide even further under him, suffocate himself rather than be exposed. Steve tipped obligingly on his opposing side so Tony could huddle under his chin, curling an arm and a leg around him. He breathed evenly, and slowly, unconsciously, Tony matched him.

He murmured, “I do love you,” because Tony needed to hear it and he needed to say it. “I love you, Tony.”

Tony gripped his shirt tightly. “I love you,” he replied, his voice almost flat, carefully gatekeeping his most vulnerable sides.

Steve didn’t mind. Tony was like that—he _knew_ Tony, knew his quirks and shenanigans and joys, and it was—he _meant_ it. Even when he was drop-dead tired and twitchy, he loved Tony. That much was always true.

In the morning, he could barely rally himself to grunt monosyllabically at Bruce, snapped openly at Clint, and was glad Natasha and Thor were nowhere to be seen for his worst behavior, but he made Tony coffee, and Tony threw out earplugs as an option, and Steve knew they’d be okay.

“I do trust you,” Tony said suddenly, halfway through his second cup and surveying his lab. “It’s _them_ I don’t trust.”

“I get that,” Steve said, even though it wasn’t his burden to bear, wasn’t a chapter in _his_ book. He knew what it was like to not trust—waking up in the wrong century had taught him everything he’d needed about _not trusting_.

Tony nodded, then said, “I—can’t say I won’t do it.”

“I know.” He knew that, too. He’d always stood up for the vulnerable, the innocent, and he said, “It’s okay, Tony.”

Some of the tension in Tony’s posture eased. He seemed a little looser as he switched topics, and Steve read the room, didn’t bring it up.

To get even _that_ much was a victory, and he felt lighter, too.

They’d figure out the new and unfamiliar, eventually. Until then—they had each other.

And that was all that really mattered.


End file.
